Impact assessment of ICT solutions in EU Smart Cities and Communities projects: from niche innovations to socio-technical transitions

To address urban and climate-related challenges, many cities are adopting smart city strategies in which Information and Communication Technology (ICT) plays a central role. This thesis examines the extent to which ICT solutions implemented in smart city projects influence socio-technical transitions. Special attention is given to the technical and social impacts of the solutions as well as to the barriers and enabling factors encountered during implementation. The study employs a qualitative case study approach, conducting an impact assessment of 78 ICT solutions across four EU Smart Cities and Communities (SCC) projects. The Multi-Level Perspective (MLP) served as the theoretical framework of the thesis, and an analytical model was developed to examine the findings across the niche, regime, and landscape level. The findings reveal that most ICT solutions had impacts related to energy efficiency, emission reduction, and citizen awareness. However, the results indicate that the impacts are mostly constrained to the scope of the individual project (niche level), with limited influence on broader socio-technical systems (regime level). The thesis concluded that individual solutions had a modest impact on socio-technical transitions but that their combined effects could potentially and gradually influence established systems and contribute to broader socio-technical transitions over time.